YouTube is still dominating the video streaming market by a large margin, but Hulu’s rapid growth indicates that consumer might be realizing the benefits of full-length programming via the Web. The latest report from Neilson Online shows that YouTube holds the top spot with 5.5 billion stream accesses in the month of April, and Hulu coming in second with 373.3 million in the month of April.

Consider Hulu’s numbers for April of last year, 63.2 million, and the explosive 490 percent year-over-year growth shows that the relatively new service may be catching up to YouTube faster than projected. The time spend viewing videos online is increasing dramatically, especially among the 35 to 49 age group. Advertisers consider sites like Hulu, which shows full-length programs, a safer bet than the short clips that proliferate YouTube.